


times apart

by teaspoonery (quodpersortem)



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quodpersortem/pseuds/teaspoonery
Summary: (livejournal re-post fromhere; mine)Rating: PG-13Word count: About 700[link] It’s the little things. The quiet frustrations Charles always picks up on.date: 2011-07-12





	times apart

Times Apart  
  
  
 _It starts like this:_  
  
  
Eventually he thinks,  _I have to leave._  
  
The roads that lead to the West coast seem endless. The fine dust covers the windows of his car. Mystique has fallen asleep in the seat next to him.   
  
  
  
 _No. It doesn’t. It starts earlier._  
  
  
It’s the little things. The quiet frustrations Charles always picks up on. Their disagreements. The way he can’t sleep without feeling Charles right next to him, even if he is in his own room.  
  
The escalation comes in the moment the world is about to end, and he is going to be the cause of it all. Next. Charles, next to him on the beach. Charles, telling him what to do. All that, while  _he_  was the one holding the whole world in his hands.   
  
He thought he’d snapped back into his old self the moment he held Charles in his hands.  
  
When they’re back at the mansion, with Charles in a plastic wheelchair, he decides it’s enough.  
  
He wants a life of his own, a mind of his own. He wants to be free the way he was before he met Charles, because these chains aren’t of metal.  
  
The idea sets itself in his mind, festers there.   
  
  
  
 _And it goes on._  
  
  
He doesn’t forget the piercing blue eyes. The colder skies of New York. He doesn’t forget the touch of muscle underneath skin, or the limber way their bodies moved.  
  
His new home is at the top of a hill, looking over the sea. It never rains in California. He has orange trees in his backyard, money that his team of mutants brings him. He tells them,  _we are better._ He thinks of when Charles told him, ‘we are the better men’. Adds on,  _we are better than humans. Look at us. We are special._  
  
Look at him.  
  
He is a bitter old man at the age of thirty-three.   
  
  
  
 _Time is without mercy._  
  
  
When he wakes up his name,  _Erik_ , it still rings in his head. He hasn’t heard it out loud the last five years. His sheets lay in a tangle around his waist.   
  
The memory of shared breath, of nothing more than a dream, is still clear in his memory.  
  
The letters are hidden in the drawer of his night stand. The sea is quiet. Birds chirp and it’s not like it used to be.  
  
The last five years have been nothing compared to the six months preceding them.  
  
The six months fall over him, obscure him like a shadow he can’t outrun. It’s his own.  
  
  
  
 _Time is without forgiveness._  
  
  
He never thinks, ‘perhaps I should.’   
  
Perhaps he should.  
  
But the years loom over him, and the creases in his skin grow deeper.   
  
He sees Charles. The older version, in that plastic wheelchair, on TV. In his dreams, their younger versions with tight skin, strong muscles.  
  
He sees Charles because they are enemies. And then because Charles’ so-called X-Men catch up with him, capture him.  
  
Even in his translucent cell, he doesn’t not think.  
  
He loses his metal helmet, and with that, his mind.  
  
  
  
 _Maybe it’s time._  
  
  
Even then it is only a  _maybe_.  
  
The thing is—Erik doesn’t know. He isn’t sure. He hasn’t had a confirmation of what Charles, of what it, of. And that’s when he thinks,  _no._  
  
The thing is—Charles does know. He can’t stand it. The both of them, they can’t.  
  
Their old throats are rough from talking for years. Charles’ body is weakening, but his mind is more powerful than ever. Erik understands how he feels.  
  
He misses the old days, but the old days are long gone.  
  
  
  
 _Then, the end._  
  
  
He watches.  
  
He is there where Charles dies.  
  
He pleads forgiveness. Charles looks at him, smiles. There is no buzz in his head.   
  
  
  
 _No. That’s not it. This is:_  
  
  
His mutants aren’t around when he passes away.  
  
It’s six o’clock in the morning. The light is pale and blue. His sheets are twisted around his old and weathered body. The air is too thin to support him, his heart too weak.   
  
Life has been hard on him.  
  
Now, finally.   
  
Closure.  
  
  
  
 _The End._


End file.
